


Kingsman: A Duty Honored

by Aud_McCartney



Series: KingsSHIELD [2]
Category: Kingsman (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1980s, Agent Slap-A-Dad is far too salty to keep it to himself, Emotional Baggage, Found Family, Gen, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Prequel, Protective Harry Hart, Protective Older Brothers, Young Harry Hart, because honestly Harry Hart doesn't need an umbrella to eviscerate a deadbeat dad, did you really think Dean Baker was the first? oh my sweet summer children, this shit goes waaaayyyy back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-23 23:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21089321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aud_McCartney/pseuds/Aud_McCartney
Summary: Respect what you’ve been granted, or be warned: Harry Hart will do it for you.





	Kingsman: A Duty Honored

—STARK MANSION—

—MAY 1987—

It’s odd what growing up does to a person.

When you’re young, you’re given heroes. Well-meaning parents fill their children’s formative minds with symbolic figureheads, in the hopes that innumerable hours of bedtime stories will add up to a lasting sense of decency. Morality. Even hope. And when you’re young, the subjects of those stories are titans. Untouchable by the world of flaw and logic.

Some of them stay that way. Preserved forever, at the very least in the figurative sense. Heroes like Steve Rogers, for one, remain exactly as they are, a snapshot of a moment in time when right and wrong were unmistakably clear. They live on in legend. You find yourself recalling them in moments of personal crisis, well beyond childhood, and find the strength in theirs to carry on with it, even when all else seems beyond hope.

And then there are the ones you grow to learn are beyond hope, themselves.

Harry shuts off the ignition of his rental car, squinting up at the estate as he emerges onto the roundabout driveway, fixing his jacket’s middle button. For his twenty-seven years, he’s known this home—along with the Starks’ rotation of summer homes—nearly as well as his own. There was a time when its grandeur intimidated him, but for the life of him, he can’t recall why anymore. Even a child could see through this for the façade it is. With space comes emptiness.

His watch puts the time at nine o’clock in the morning. He’s well ahead of schedule, but takes the front steps two at a time anyway, and presses the bell with a confident hand. He does, after all, have somewhere to be.

The door pulls back, and Harry smiles at one of the only two residents of the place who’d ever prompt one from him. “Hello, Jarvis.”

The butler steps aside for him, returning the cordiality. “How good to see you, Master Harry. You look as though London’s treating you wonderfully.”

“It is, thank you.”

“May I help you with anything?”

“Yes,” Harry says, looking around the sprawling foyer with a vague disinterest as Jarvis shuts the door. Each time he returns, it always looks…well, more stark in here, ironically. “I was hoping to have a word with Mr. Stark. Is he in?”

“As luck would have it, yes, you’ve caught us in the nick of time. You’ll find him in his study.”

The aging aide has always been cooperative, and for that, Harry’s always been grateful. Even when Tony could have used a more forceful advocate in the house. Realistically, that’s nothing to hold against a man with a living to make. Jarvis always did the best he could, and chose his battles as necessary. He’s goodhearted. Kinder and more parental by far than the alternatives. The gaps in Tony’s upbringing are hardly his fault.

That responsibility falls to the man he’s come to see.

“Thank you again,” Harry says, hoping to convey an empathetic warmth. “If you ever miss home, you’ll have to come and see me on Saville Row. You’d be more than welcomed.”

Jarvis smiles as though he hasn’t heard an offer for himself in years. “How kind of you to say so, sir. I may take you up on that someday.”

Harry shakes the butler’s hand, dealing him a business card in the process. It’s for the front end business, of course. He always carries a few, ‘KINGSMAN TAILORS’ embossed across the top in sparing gold leaf. Jarvis will never have the free time to use it, but it’s a nice thought all the same. He’ll set a dinner jacket aside for him anyway, just in case. For all he puts up with, the man deserves something bulletproof.

No matter how much time passes, or how many decorative whims Mrs. Stark passes through, Harry’s never forgotten his way around. He heads to the rear of the house, passing the sunroom where Tony used to play as a little boy. Passing the closet he once helped Tony ransack in search of electrical components they were both far too young to touch.

None of it feels all that long ago. The sight of himself in his suit as he passes a mirror is a sobering reminder. They aren’t children anymore.

In the hall, that’s a bittersweet reality, but at the threshold of Howard’s study, Harry arms himself with it. He isn’t a child anymore. He won’t be dismissed as one. Where he once felt awe in a titan’s towering presence, he now feels only pity, and the moat and dragon of his mind’s eye have long since faded away. The door is just a door. And it’s ajar. He raps twice on it, leaning in.

“Mr. Stark?”

He’s there, standing beside his leather chair, vest undone, kneading his chin as he fixates on something or other. A pile of fax paper spread across his desk. He’s gone entirely grey now, and seems so much shorter than when Harry last saw him. Not unlike the wizard behind the curtain, stripped of his bluster. No more a man than any other.

It takes Howard several moments to catch up to the sound of his own name, and when he does, his eyes raise to the doorway, and his focus gives way to an amicable, lopsided grin.

“Well hey, kid, long time no see, come on in. How ya doin’?”

Harry comes in. His upbringing would have him shake the man’s hand. His upbringing is also why he doesn’t. Distantly, it occurs to him that Tony calls his mother ‘Aunt Peg.’ That she’s his godmother, officially. Yet it never was reciprocal. Howard is neither ‘uncle’ nor godfather to Harry, and there’s a reason for that.

“I’m well, thank you, sir,” he says instead. “I was hoping I might have a word with you. Is now a bad time?”

Howard picks up a folder and scoops his pages into it, tapping the edges down. “I think I can spare a minute, sure, but talk fast. Got a lot to do this week. Have a seat, if you want to.”

Harry doesn’t. He stands tall, hands in his pockets, exactly where he is.

It isn’t that Howard’s grown shorter, he notices. It’s that he’s outgrown him.

“I’m fine, thank you. I don’t intend to take much of your time.”

“Then what can I do you for?”

“With all due respect, sir, I came to ask a question you’ll likely find none of my business.”

That earns him a pause in the distracted shuffle of Howard’s hands across his desktop. It earns him eye contact, the kind that comes with piqued curiosity, probing him for motives from under a peaked eyebrow. There may be a certain respect in it; if there is, it does nothing to flatter him.

“Well, you’re here now,” Howard says. “Go on and ask it.”

As if he’d have flown over an ocean and detoured to the wrong state to do anything else. What a waste of breath. Harry levels his steadiest gaze on the man across from him, leaving no respite where he could possibly run from it.

“You failed to RSVP to Tony’s graduation ceremony three months ago. Commencements are this afternoon. Can he count on you to attend, or should I send for another gift basket and telegram signed with your name? It won’t be any trouble; over the years I’ve become quite good at forging your signature.”

In the silent beat that follows impact, Howard’s brow closes in on deeply narrowed eyes, and Harry stares at the man he once thought ran the world, unflinching. He holds a motionless expression. Partly because he is prepared neither to yield nor apologize, and partly because he’d soon fail to hold the dam if he were to hint at his judgment any more than he already has. That particular barrier is thin enough already.

Judging by the rise of his stature, Howard doesn’t feel the shame he ought to. That’s all right. Harry’s hardly finished; there’s plenty more where that came from. He watches the old tycoon fasten his waistcoat.

“Is that so?”

“Don’t worry, it hasn’t made him believe you give a damn,” Harry replies coolly. “It’s only made him believe that at least you own a calendar, or that Jarvis does. I’d have hoped for more, but it’s better than nothing.”

Howard’s jaw sets. “You can stand down, Harry.” His tightly-controlled tone rings of a first warning. “He’s my son. I think I know when his college graduation is.”

“It isn’t your knowledge that concerns me. It’s action. Or the lack thereof.”

He wants to bite out more. Until he draws blood, quite frankly, because now that he’s standing in this fucking room, the memories are piling up on him, in a way that they didn’t on the drive. He wants to remind Howard Stark that he also ‘knew’ when Tony’s last four academic award ceremonies took place. That he ‘knew’ Tony hoped he would visit campus on Parents’ Day, though the poor boy knew better than to say so. He wants to snarl that Howard also ‘knows’ what day his only child was born, and yet somehow, more than once, Tony’s birthday has passed without so much as a fucking telephone call from his own father.

He wants to, but he doesn’t. Howard isn’t built to handle the criticism. He’d only shut down, and it’d be even more like talking to a brick wall than usual. Harry bites his tongue instead, biding his time until speaking will serve his objective again.

“Y’know? I don’t seem to remember your mom being this critical of my parenting.”

“Then you haven’t listened. She’s brought her concerns to you since I was twelve. You’ve only been able to dismiss them because my mother is not only a lady, but your friend.”

“A lady,” Howard repeats, as if the word choice amuses him. There are, after all, so many more that could describe Peggy Carter. Howard’s hand pinwheels lazily in front of him, reeling his own words in. “And aren’t you supposed to be a gentleman?”

“A gentleman, yes. I’m my mother’s son. The difference is that I’m no close friend of yours.”

“I see.”

“I don’t doubt the good my mother sees in you, but I believe you’ve forgotten it yourself. And you and I have no significant relationship to preserve. I have no qualms with leaving here on your blacklist, if that’s what it comes to.”

“So that’s what this charming, ‘let me be frank’ thing is about,” Howard assesses dryly. “You’re Mr. Tough Guy now, huh?”

Harry doesn’t budge. Not his gaze, not his tone, and not his resolve.

“I’m someone who has always looked after your son as if he were my own brother, and who takes his disappointment very personally. Consider it what I’m sure you’d call a character flaw.”

“Relax.”

Howard takes the rock glass from the corner of his desk, swallowing dregs of gin in a single pull before returning it to the surface. Harry assumes the effect is medicinal, at this point—and what’s more, he takes satisfaction in being the reason it’s necessary.

“Besides, it’s a momentous occasion,” Howard says, gruff through the burn of the liquor. “How many people do you think graduate from MIT at seventeen? The media’s gonna be all over this.”

Anger twitches Harry's lip, eager with venom. Every nerve he’s able to step on feels _good_. Better than he’d imagined. This is the sort of perk of growing up they never tell you about, and Harry wonders what it says about him that he relishes it. He wonders, but doesn’t much care.

“Yes, they’re quite reliable. It’s nice that someone is.”

The downward snap of Howard’s brow is deeper the second time. The man has clearly had enough of this. Twenty years ago, it would have made Harry hide behind his mothers’ skirts. Today, he has to temper his triumph before it surfaces too obnoxiously.

Slowly, Howard walks around the desk. He sizes Harry up, looking as though he’s truly noticing his decade-old growth spurt for the first time, and isn’t sure he approves.

“Listen, Harry. I’ve got a lot of respect for your mom…and for you. I’ve always thought you were a bright young man, with a lot of potential. So I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt. I appreciate you looking out for Tony’s best interests, and I’m sure he does too.”

He should know his own son better than that. As if the boy raised utterly foreign to affection could ever find Harry’s watchful eye anything but irritating. On any given day, Tony would most likely rather drown himself than be seen within a mile of Harry’s car.

“Not in the slightest.” Why not be blunt about it. It’s the truth. “The day that stops me is the day I’m dead and buried.”

Howard’s eyebrows hop. “Must be a glutton for punishment then. S’pose we all got somethin’.”

Were Harry’s willpower any less, he would slap away the olive branch, brittle as it is anyhow. He would advance, and tell Howard Stark once and for all what he really thinks of him as a father. As a man so concerned with his own legacy that he ritually ignores the only part of it that could possibly matter in the end. God help him, he’d raise his voice, and he’d enjoy it. Mrs. Stark would be alarmed. Vaguely he wonders what it would be like to have Jarvis forcibly escort him from the property.

But he knows better. This moment is a chance to be heard. His only choice is to take it. For Tony’s sake. He appeals to Mr. Stark with an open expression and dismal expectations, praying at least a fraction sinks in.

“Sir, I promise you that I want to be standing here as little as you do. I’ve respected you all my life, and as the man my mother put her faith in, I still do. I hope that I always will.”

“Well, that’s more like it.”

“But Tony is more important than both your pride and mine.” None of this is his business to reveal. But he does it anyway. He _makes_ it his business. “He acts as though you don’t affect him. I promise you, he’s lying. It’s a lie you taught him to maintain before he was six years old. The truth is that your failure to appear today would crush him.” Harry allows his eyes to narrow again, very slightly, just for emphasis. “And it would be. _Your_ failure. Very much so.”

Howard presses his mouth into a fine line. As flat as the rest of his expression. There’s a finality in it, unapologetic and irrefutable, whether Harry likes it or not.

“I’ll be there, Harry.” As terse as his face is immobile. “You done?”

Yes. He is. Because it’s already painfully clear, and Harry can’t even muster the least bit of surprise. He knew it. Walking in, he knew it, just as surely as he knew his own name.

The man failed to absorb a single word.

In that case, there are truly a thousand better places for Harry to be. Including, but not limited to: an overcrowded uni in the quaint town of Cambridge, an active hostage situation, and the rubbish bin he once cracked a Russian’s skull in. He clears his throat to redirect, hoping to be en route to the former as quickly as possible, while there are still decent seats to be had.

“Nearly. I prefer that Tony never gets wind of this conversation, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Fine by me.”

As if he’d ever volunteer two words to his son in the first place. Someone would have to call an ambulance; the nearest bystander would have a fucking seismic heart attack.

“Then yes, I believe I’m through.”

Harry nods once, his cordial reflexes halted, in stasis, at a loss. He could go through the motions of shaking Howard’s hand, as if something constructive has just been accomplished here. Some agreement reached. But what would be the point? The pretense is dead, and he murdered it. There’s nothing left for him in this room. Nothing useful. He turns to go, seeing himself out, as The Great Howard Stark says nothing whatsoever to stop him.

Until he reaches the door jamb. And then he stops himself. He can’t resist.

“Oh, and one last thing, sir.” Harry looks back over his shoulder, just enough to be sure that he has his undivided attention. “The ‘M’ in MIT stands for Massachusetts.”

After all: the man who’s never once visited his son at university would have reason to be somewhat fuzzy.

Before Howard can say another thing, Harry takes his leave, smoothly strolling out the way he came. The sound of a slam on Howard’s desk follows him into the hallway. Jarvis looks, but doesn’t ask.

It’s just as well. Harry has a graduation to attend.


End file.
